Habakkuk says God’s eyes are too pure to look on evil, yet he asks why God is silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they. The tension is stated directly as a complaint. This is in Habakkuk 1:13.
In Habakkuk 1:12–13 the prophet turns God’s earlier answer back into a hard question. He begins by addressing Yahweh as eternal, personal, and morally pure, and he insists that God’s people will not be wiped out. Yet he also accepts that God has “appointed” the invader as a tool of discipline. These verses sit inside the book’s dialogue structure. After the opening complaint about violence and stalled justice inside Judah (1:2–4), God answers that he is raising the Chaldeans/Babylonians as the coming force (1:5–11).
Habakkuk 1:12–13 presents a tension the text itself creates. Habakkuk addresses Yahweh as eternal, personally “my God,” and uniquely holy (explicit claims). On that basis he voices confidence: “We will not die” (explicit claim), meaning the coming judgment will not erase the people completely.
A careful answer keeps the immediate passage, the book's argument, and the whole-Bible storyline together, so the question is answered in context instead of as a detached idea.
Start with Habakkuk 1:13, then read the surrounding section so the answer stays connected to the passage's flow.
13You who have purer eyes than to see evil, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously, and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more righteous than he,